It also examines homicides of sex workers, and criminal court outcomes for prostitution-related cases.

Among the highlights:

Between 2009 and 2014, the period prior to the
introduction of new legislation that made it illegal to purchase sexual
services, there were 16,879 prostitution incidents reported by police in
Canada. These incidents represented less than 0.1% of all crimes
reported in Canada in the same time period.

In 2014, there were 3.0 police-reported prostitution offences per 100,000 population, the lowest rate since 1982.

The majority of prostitution offences (82%)
reported between 2009 and 2014 were for communicating or attempting to
communicate with a person for the purpose of engaging in or obtaining
sexual services.

Close to half (43%) of persons accused of a
prostitution-related offence between 2009 and 2014 were female, compared
with less than one quarter (23%) of persons accused of any offence
overall during the same time period. Females accused of prostitution
were much younger than males (median age of 31 versus 42).

Repeated contact with police for
prostitution-related offences was more frequent among female accused
(27%) compared with male accused (3%).

Between 1991 and 2014, there were 294 homicides
of sex workers. One in three (34%) homicides of sex workers remained
unsolved; a much greater proportion than for homicides that did not
involve a sex worker victim (20%).

Between 2008/2009 and 2013/2014, under one
third (30%) of prostitution cases processed in criminal courts resulted
in a guilty verdict; this was much lower than the proportion for
criminal court cases in general (64%).

Disclaimer

Neither the content nor the views contained in this blog represent the positions of my employer or of any association to which I belong. Any links to a news article, an academic study or another blog post should not be considered to indicate any form of endorsement on my part or on that of my institution. This is a purely personal blog for the purposes of sharing information about library issues and legal research.